First of all, thank you for everyones patience while the forum was offline this evening (Tue 29/03/16). We were down for about one hour and a half from 7pm to 8.30pm, much less than anticipated as the upgrade went smoothly with little issues or problems.

So why upgrade?

The upgrade was necessary for several reasons, but the main are:

Better security: Version 3.1.8 enables a host of new security improvements to the forum itself and individual users.Stability: This version is the most stable version of phpBB available, enabling a better and much more smoother user experience than ever before.Added features: Newer features (see below) will allow The Australian Weather Forum to continue to grow and adapt as technology advances.Old system: Our previous forum version was out of date and close to being non-supported.

What's different? Anything new?

Most of the upgrade is behind the hood and in our system, however there are some notable changes. We're sure you'll enjoy them.

Layout: The general look and feel of the forum has been updated, made more modern and easier to navigate.Mobile/Tablet Compatible: One of the biggest new features is the compatibility with mobile phones and tablets - the forum should now fit much more perfectly onto those screen sizes, making it easier to post and navigate if you're not using a computer or laptop.Announcements: We can now notify users of any scheduled maintenance or upgrades, plus any important messages, via a red banner at the top of our forum. It is in use now.Quick Links: This can be found in the top left corner, and will display shortcuts to any new or unread posts and topics that you may have missed.Notifications: You can find this in the top right hand corner, next to "Private Messages" and your profile. You can receive notifications for things such as being quoted in a post, to a new post being made in a topic you've subscribed, and more. You can manage your notifications by clicking on "notifications" and then going to "settings".Contact Us Form: A new section for anybody to get in touch with us via a form. Can be found at the bottom of the page.

The best thing is to explore the new forum to get a feel for the new features, but much of what you'll see and use remains the same.

Feedback:

If you have any specific feedback about the new version, feel free to leave in a reply here. We're happy to receive positive and negative feedback, we want to know what you think. And if you have any questions, also, feel free to ask.

Hi Stevco, yeah it's something that we've always been asked about. Unfortunately due to bandwidth and storage capacity, it becomes a bit more complex. The easiest way around this is to upload your photos to an external provider, then link it here via the "img" code. We will definitely look into seeing if we can make it an easier process now that you have mentioned it. Give me a week or so to find out some more information and I'll see what I can do, because I do understand the frustration.

Jake Smethurst wrote:yeah it's something that we've always been asked about. Unfortunately due to bandwidth and storage capacity, it becomes a bit more complex. The easiest way around this is to upload your photos to an external provider, then link it here via the "img" code.

The forum was down twice today for scheduled maintenance and upgrades.

The first was around 4.30PM and lasted roughly 45 minutes. It was the major update which included mostly security improvements. It also updated the core phpBB software to the latest version of 3.1.10 (from 3.1.9).

The second was at 7PM, and lasted only 5-10 minutes. We fixed an issue with the width of the forum on desktop computers. The width now aligns with the correct region instead of stretching to the edges of the screen.

We are aware of a width issue on mobile devices, this will be fixed in coming days.

Lastly, we will shortly be introducing a new, much easier way to attach images to the forums. Stay tuned for that!

Well done Jake. Love the new page width look you have done. It will look good on mobiles when you finished although it looks like you have. Making attaching images easier will be great for people who have had trouble in the past

The forum has been upgraded from 3.1.10 to 3.2.0 This was a major update, which included minor visual changes to the forum and many behind the hood improvements. The forum was down from 3.30pm this afternoon until 5pm this afternoon - apologies for that but was necessary to complete update. Obviously, any issues, please leave a reply here or send me or another team member a message.

P.S: We are still implementing a much easier way to upload photos shortly. We are working with a major website on this, just stay tuned!